The Descent
by Sunsorrow18
Summary: You can't keep a Pokemon antagonist out of action for long. Within, the villains from the main game series ... team up and do something, eventually. Beware, headcannons abound within. Rated T because I think it'll probably end up there. I will update chapter 2 soon, as it's substandard for me.
1. A madman's frigid mind

To make it clear, Detective Looker of the International Police was not a psychotherapist. He was a _detective._ Apparently, even his bosses weren't aware of what that word meant, since they kept sending him down to work with a crazy man. In hopes of _recruiting_ him, no less! It was a preposterous idea. Ghetsis Harmonia was mentally disturbed, simple as that, and he either needed help or a padded room. Looker wanted to be out there looking for the scientist who had been a member of Team Plasma formerly, as he had all the _important_ information and documents, but _nooo_, he had to be in here with this guy. The one who wouldn't stop tapping his fingers on the table. The pattern Harmonia was drumming had gotten into his brain, and it didn't seem to be intent on leaving.

"Ghetsis Harmonia!" Looker snapped, staring down into his official police notebook so as to avoid looking into _those_ creepy eyes. Ghetsis smiled at him with a languid sort of insolence, running one slim finger over his lower lip. His own, not Looker's, thankfully, or things would have been a lot worse.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Ghetsis asked, a perfectly natural smile in it's place. He was an exceptionally pretty man, and should have looked nonthreatening with such a friendly and gentle expression, but Looker couldn't exactly just forget all the things this man had done. He'd been pardoned the little things, as royalty, but some of the stuff he'd done... It was only more shocking coming from someone so beautiful and timid-looking. "Or is that something you're not allowed to tell me?" His voice, as charismatic as anyone who had ever known his could testify, was as charismatic as always. In this instance, however, it practically dripped with mocking and patronization. It was obvious that Ghetsis was just as pleased to be in this room as Looker was.

"We don't have to play games," Looker told him, not raising his eyes. He wasn't fond of being made fun of, and looking at Ghetsis while he was being so rude would only make the detective angry. It had been sated explicitly that Ghetsis was not to be harmed if possible. Looker simply continued looking at the sheets of paper tucked into his notebook, keeping calm.

"You have a high IQ," he told Ghetsis, as if the man weren't aware of this shocking fact. "But a... disposition towards evil." It had taken him a minute to think of the word, English was such an odd language. "We want to help."

Ghetsis blinked at him pleasantly, apparently a bit puzzled as to what Looker could possibly be getting at. All this silly chatter. What did he want?

"It says here you're probably crazy, though. What do you think about that?"

Looker folded his papers and tucked the notebook neatly inside his coat, finally lifting his gaze to stare sternly at Ghetsis, as if this would coerce him into speaking the truth.

Harmonia waved a hand dismissively. His smile wasn't wavering. It was creepy. "Please Detective," Ghetsis said delicately, tipping his head, "I've sat through enough pointless drivel in my life. Would it _kill_ you to get to the point, really?" His expression did seem a little forced now, exasperated. All Looker noticed was that he hadn't confirmed nor denied his accusation.

And, he was still tapping out that _damned_ rhythm. Looker was going to strangle him. He was really going to do it-

The detective took a deep breath, and got to the point.

"We know how you were involved in takeover attempts of the Unova region, and we cannot allow it to occur again," he said bluntly. There. All good, very terse, and he hadn't even punched Ghetsis right in his pretty nose. I'm just in a bad mood today, that's all, the detective told himself.

However, his statement gained a derisive huff from Ghetsis, as if he found its simplicity amusing, in a not-so-nice way.

"And so," Looker continued, closing his eyes as a pulse throbbed in his forehead, "I'm here to offer you a job of sorts that would allow you to expel your evil genius through a different outlet, under police supervision."

Ghetsis laughed this time, a real laugh, and not the airy ones that he used for fooling common people into thinking he liked them at all. Amusement was not exactly the response Looker had been going for. If he had to take a guess, Ghetsis was amused in an unfriendly way, more condescending than actually entertained.

"Detective, I know you were in Sinnoh at the time of... certain occurrences," Harmonia laughed airily, expressing some even more advanced form of ridicule with a delicate hand gesture. "You should know almost as well as I do what I've done, as a government worker. I-" and here he placed a hand on his own chest, as if announcing something very important, "-was the one responsible for the time catastrophe, all those years ago. I killed a half billion people. Now tell me, detective, does that really make it sound like I have any hope for becoming a "decent person," as your employees seem to desire, just through "police supervision?""

The Unovan man had leaned forwards as he spoke, taking advantage of his ridiculous height to intimidate Looker, and it worked. The detective leaned back in response, lip curling.

He growled right back at Ghetsis's face, just wishing he could be out of this room. "It's been agreed that Giratina and Dialga caused the Time Catastrophe, or maybe Cyrus, it doesn't matter. It wasn't your fault, for once."

Looker huffed suddenly, slashing a hand in front of him angrily. "Stay on topic, dammit! Will you accept, or do you want to stay and rot here forever?!"

Ghetsis simply blinked at him, not at all impressed by the outburst.

"You are in no position to be threatening me," he said then, a grin appearing suddenly as he stood. He made as wide a gesture as a handcuffed man could, the chain between his wrists oversized prison clothes hung from his thin body. Looker felt a chill of dread down his spine, mixing with his frustration. Ghetsis was too tall to be allowed, and his expression was frightening.

"I have three people with me who are highly capable of busting me out of here. I could snap my fingers and be to Kalos within seconds. Detective... I would say that if you wanted my cooperation, you'd have to offer something a lot better than that."


	2. The early flames of ardor

It had been an _extremely_ long time since Maxie and Archie had last seen the two boys who'd beat them after their respective attempts at turning the world into more land or more water. That had a perfectly reasonable explanation, really- Maxie had been planning to blow up volcanoes and blah blah blah, probably was going to kill everyone in Hoenn, Archie tried to stop him while pursuing his dreams of a gigantic swimming pool or whatever, and those two had been caught in the crossfire.

Well, that was not actually the point of what Maxie and Archie had done, but the truth was something they'd get _another_ life sentence for if they shared it.

Anyways, after finding out they all four were alive, they'd arranged, in the most covert way possible, to meet up and have a chat about the old days. Maxie had made some noodle thing -whatever it was, it looked_ spicy_\- and now they were sitting around a table. The younger of the boys (they were twin brothers, for future reference) set his elbows on the table, causing any noble-people within a mile radius to faint by the sheer waves of uncouthness, and steepled his fingers in front of his lips. Next to him, his brother was attempting to deal with the fact that he'd just gotten his mouth burned off. "You two have been holding up well. Has the Pokémon Liberation Front tried to contact you again?"

"Shush!" Archie hissed, hunching his shoulders as if in physical pain. They were in his hideout/safe house place. Everyone was relatively sure that the police had not found it yet, or else they would have arrested the two men, but one could never be completely sure that there were no listening devices, or, heaven forbid, spies.

"Oh, is that still a touchy subject?" the younger asked, still smiling in that sweetly demonic way he did. "I guess it would be, considering." He daintily picked up his fork, and waved it in the air to accentuate his point. "I mean, it did make you two break up, right?" Yes, this twin was very involved with gossip- when concealing one's true age, one has to keep up with the times.

"Shut up," Archie snapped. "I already explained that I don't date guys twice my age." With that, he almost decided to see it one could kill themselves by stuffing ultra-spicy noodles up their nose. Then he decided to suffer with the indignity of Maxie and the younger laughing at him in the nicest way, the older twin still choking to no one's notice.

Maxie cleared his throat. "Now that we have all the pleasantries settled on our side, how are you two doing?" For this answer, everyone looked at the elder twin, and they finally noticed.

"We should give him some water," Archie said. No, not because he was obsessed with water, but because he was the only sensible person in the room able to speak.

"Yeah," Maxie agreed.

They all stood there and watched for a while as the elder fanned his mouth dramatically, coughing.

After about a minute, he coughed up a noodle that had been badly lodged in his throat. "Jerk," he called his brother childishly, slowly getting to his feet and proceeding to slap his twin across the face.

"Now, were we talking about the-"

He was immediately quieted by a round of "shushes," because, obviously, this was not the place to talk about the Pokémon Liberation Front. And besides, even if it were, it brought back unpleasant memories for everyone.

The light-haired men (that is, the twins) glanced at each other, quieting for a long moment. "We- we appreciate your hospitality, ion your circumstances, but we can't." The elder twin was speaking now, and seemed _extremely_ hesitant about his words. "We can't see it being wise to stay any longer. I don't believe there is anything we can do to help." He let out a nervous breath, playing with the end of his hair.

"Understood," Maxie said. "I agree that it might be best for you to leave now. You could be in danger from this." After he had given a somewhat unwanted hug to the twins, they departed, leaving both former Team leaders with forlorn expressions.

"That brought up some unwelcome questions," Maxie sighed, turning and beginning to clear the dishes. Archie watched him with an expression that seemed to suggest an opposition to his earlier statement about his dating habits. "What if the PLF does try to get our help again?" Maxie continued, oblivious to the lusty stare.

"No," Archie said with finality, closing his eyes and slashing one hand across the air. "We lay low. If they find up, then we refuse." He bit his full lower lip, trying not to think of what would happen then. Unpleasant images, heavily featuring physical and mental dismemberment, featured.

Maxie sighed, turning back to his friend. "And how long, really, do you think we can stand up against their psychic types? _We aren't that strong minded_, Archie. I'm afraid that if they do end up finding us, we won't get to stay our usual rebellious selves for long." He set the stack of dishes back on the makeshift table, covering his face with his slim hands and pressing on his eyelids. He looked fragile at the moment, and Archie set a hand comfortingly on his upper arm, which was honestly about the height of his chin.

"If that moment comes, we can get through it somehow, I'm sure. Even if it means turning ourselves into the police." For some reason, he couldn't even reassure himself that everything was going to be fine.


	3. The art of infliction

_A.N.: I only know English. I use Google translate. I do apologize._

_By the way, even one review would be appreciated -o__r a comment, if those are possible-__ I don't have the faintest clue what you people out there think of this. _

Lysandre folded his hands patiently over the end of his whip, glacial blue eyes closing. "It's doing you no good to deny me, you know," he said commandingly, opening those eyes again to look down upon his captive. The other man was sagged on his knees, hands bound above his bowed head. His back was bare under the harsh fluorescent lights, elegantly striped with red wounds that lazily welled with blood and spilled down the contours of his muscles. "You're only earning this."

The light-haired Asian man sniffled quietly to himself, more because his nose was running than anything else, and looked up, equally pale blue eyes slitting open to glare derisively at the Kalos royal man. "You are doing no good inflicting that torture," he said quietly, calmly. "There is nothing you can do to hurt me." Cyrus could never be broken. Not his heart. Not his mind. Not even his body, the weakest of his elements. After all, he had felt the pain of the world at the peak of the Chemin de Pleurer, the ancient Kalosian war. He'd felt the agony of humanity during the Veliki Ustnaak. As if one spoiled brat with ridiculous hair could have any effect at all.

Lysandre chuckled once, raising his weapon. Cyrus let his head fall again, resting his chin against his collarbone and waiting for the sting and ache.

How he berated himself for being so stupid! He had convinced Giratina to let him out of the Distortion World - it had been easy, really, seeing as the thing had emotions just like any human and could be swayed by them. But then, seeking out his former "co-workers" (only for the purpose of reminding himself he'd existed before) he had found himself approached by a man with vivid orange hair who thought maybe they'd met before. Cyrus had intended to tell him that no, he was sure they really hadn't, when the man had snapped his fingers and spoken his name. Just that. Cyrus had felt a moment of silent dread before being violently bashed in the head. Everything had blurred again... he saw_ that face_ for only a moment before succumbing to the need of his physical shell for relief.

The blow didn't come- the end of the whip was lightly trailed along Cyrus' back, raising an involuntary shiver with the feather-light tickle. Lysandre was looking down on his victim silently, contemplating like he was a half-finished carving. "Your means weren't beautiful," he said harshly, judgingly. "Nor was your motive. But the outcome, that was inspired. I think I can see how one might be driven to that. That's all I need from you, Cyrus, your help in bringing about this end to fighting. And if it means wiping out emotion, I suppose it will be beautiful in its own right, even leaving the human race to survive. It is still better than this sin."

He squatted down to be closer to eye level with Cyrus, tilting his head up forcibly. "You could just help me and spare yourself. What do you think?"

Lysandre had really walked into that one. "I think you should burn in Hell," Cyrus suggested politely. "...Although, untying my arms would suffice." He hated having to ask, but his shoulders were beginning to ache and he couldn't well untie them himself.

The taller man laughed, then reached up to undo the bindings. "And I was told you were emotionally crippled," he commented. Cyrus looked steadily at him, wondering who in the world would say such a thing about him... and how did they know?

Seemingly sensing the question, Lysandre smirked. "Your old friend," he teased, finally getting the knot untied and allowing Cyrus to drop his arms. "The one with the cat ears."

"Saturn?" Cyrus asked, rubbing his sore muscles and looking rather vehemently at Lysandre for being such an _emotional cripple_. "How do you know him?" If this bastard had even _thought_ about abusing Saturn like this, Cyrus would be seriously tempted to strangle him with that _bloody_ whip. Now, understand, Cyrus did have emotions, and they would develop into sentimentality with prolonged exposure, he just didn't have very _many_ emotions.

"Oh, I tracked him down," Lysandre said smugly. "You see, I looked up to Team Galactic, or more specifically, you. You wanted to bring an end both to emotion and fighting. What I really admired is the fact that you managed to win, unlike those miserable failures in Hoenn, Johto, and Kanto." With a powerful tug, Lysandre lifted Cyrus to his feet. The smaller man could barely stand, his legs felt like needle-filled jelly and he collapsed against Lysandre's chest, hating how weak he seemed. No, he shouldn't be hateful. That would only lead to worse...

Lysandre smiled dangerously at the top of Cyrus' head. "What do you want from me?" the Asian said, his voice muffled in the lace thingy around Lysandre's neck. "What will it cost for you to let me go?" His body was shaking. Lysandre had really weakened him, more than Cyrus would ever admit. He did not feel pain, not anymore, but his body was just like that of a normal human. That didn't mean the wounds weren't there.

With his powerful hands on the smaller man's arms, Lysandre forced Cyrus to stand straight. Two pairs of amazingly pale eyes locked, both calm, one empty.

"I want your cooperation, that's all," Lysandre said soothingly, his smile becoming more natural, less predatory.

Cyrus turned his head away, the ends of his hair tracking his own blood across his skin and saturating purple. "This..." he said softly, voice tightening as if he were about to cry -which is impossible- "This was caused by your emotions. Greed. Desire. " His brows dropped, squeezing his eyes shut. "But you... It seems moire like naivety. I don't understand your motives." Her looked up into his captor's face. "Why would I help someone who could be completely opposing my own goals?"

"Because of those people," the French man said. "The ones you ended up caring about, even though we all know you never wanted to feel. I can kill them one by one right in front of your eyes." More than that, it wouldn't bother Lysandre one bit. People had to die to make great things happen, even a beautiful world. Besides, their deaths, along with those others who denied him, would eventually be part of his symphony anyways.


	4. Useful things come at a price

Rishou grimaced, considering the red lines he'd bitten in to the knuckle of his right hand. "Well," he said to the abused skin, scowling as if it had offended his oldest ancestors(he didn't have any ancestors, but that was irrelevant). "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Same thing we've been doing," his brother replied languidly, rolling over more comfortably on the training mat that they had been using until a few minutes ago to keep their fighting skills sharp, although martial arts were almost obsolete in a world where Pokemon battles were the answer to everything. "We keep training, we search for N, and we wait for a call."

It made Rishou grumble in discontent. He didn't like waiting. It was absolutely boring. Well, there were worse things that could be happening. He probably shouldn't complain, but the assertion of this fact did not make him feel any better.

"Weird that you aren't freaking out though, Perlith."

And that was the third of them, leaning petulantly against the wall in wake of his defeat. "Like, you'd usually be flipping out if he went missing for even an hour, but how many weeks has it been?" Ashur switched which foot he was balancing on, frowning at the ground. He'd always been suspicious of Perlith, of course, that maybe everything was an act. He didn't like how his brother was so apathetic, but suddenly became emotional the moment Ghetsis was involved. It was _veeery_ suspicious.

"What do you want, for me to magically find out where he is? We can't really act until we know, so there's no point in having a cow about it," the ponytailed member of the Triad growled, deciding the mat was uncomfortable and standing. He glared swiftly at Ashur, innocently moving his gaze when the other man lifted his head. Truthfully, Perlith didn't like his siblings as much as they liked him. Rishou was far too bull-headed and angry, and Ashur was just plain _dumb_.

"Well, what about N?" Rishou snapped, folding his arms and letting out a derisive snort at the less than witty comments his brothers were making. "If we can't find Ghetsis, he must be somewhere we can't see, but I doubt the brat would go too far out of Unova, unless he went to Kalos, in which case he's probably dead."

"The Brat" was the Triad's super-adorable nickname for N. They'd liked him when he was a fuzzy little ball of sunshine, but then the teenage years, and he'd been an insufferable possessive creep with an inflated sense of self-entitlement, not to mention that tendency to stalk people. He'd made the Triad kidnap a few of his victims. Apparently the concept of a friendly chat was foreign to him. Nope, had to kidnap them and be really creepy.

Ashur shrugged, looking thoughtful about that. "It would probably be better if he were dead, honestly. And he might be. You know, when he said goodbye that last time, I got the feeling that Zekrom despised him, and you know that Dragon has no problems with killing a bad trainer. Ah, well, anyways, I haven't sensed him anywhere in Unova. The only place he could really hide here is the underground, and of course the twins would contact us if he was there."

Team Plasma had a deal with the masters of Gear Station- information for allowance to continue with their facility despite it being against every ethic Team Plasma upheld. The trains always hummed with gossip.

"Dah, that is a decent point. But maybe you just missed him. It's pretty feasible, if you ask me," Perlith sighed. It should have sounded taunting, but from Perlith, it only seemed as if he were tiredly making a point, which was probably why Ashur was sort of freaked out by him.

"I did not," Ashur huffed, beginning to pace around the room despite having supposedly almost sprained his ankle in their fight. The Shadows absolutely did not have time for pain. "Look, it's not even N we need, just Zekrom. Maybe Giratina could coax it to run away from N, and then we could recover the dark stone."

"Yes, that's great, Ashur, but how exactly do you suggest we get Giratina to cooperate with us? He'd want an eye, at very least, and we can't spare one even among the three of us."

They liked to see everything so very clearly.

Ashur crossed his own muscular arms, standoffish and scowling. "I think Lord Ghetsis _well_ payed that one, don't you? Even the Renegade Dragon can owe debts."

"You're mad. It has no respect, even you know should know that. Believe me, I am well acquainted with Giratina, and that creature is remorseless. It does nothing unless it has entertainment to gain from what it assists," Perlith sighed, steel-colored eyes flicking over his siblings as if he were challenging them to argue.

"I'm afraid he's probably right."

It was honestly a pretty rare thing for people to sneak up on one ninja, let alone three, and they were duly surprised by the mild voice from the doorway to their training room. And they were startled over it, but they relaxed upon seeing their visitor.

"Zinzolin. Has something happened?"

The Ice-exclusive sage had taken over Team Plasma while Ghetsis was missing. He had all confidence in the return of his longtime friend, of course, and didn't even think about trying to canonize his rule. Everyone who still remained with the organization, in fact, was very stoic in saying Lord Ghetsis would return, except for the Triad. The others said cheerfully that if he were in any actual trouble, he would have already whistled for his dogs.

Doubtful. Ghetsis had this bad habit of thinking he could do things by himself, that he was good enough, even though everyone knew honestly that he wasn't. He'd only call on the brink of death. Ah, but Ashur told his brothers stubbornly that on the cliff-edge of nothing was better than not finding him at all.

"Something, yes," the purple-clad man said, squinting at the Triad. "Well, precisely, Colress waltzed in."

The twitchy scientist had ditched the second Kyurem had turned on Ghetsis(he'd only been an ice statue for a few days before thawing out, mostly unharmed) and had taken quite a good portion of his research along with him. Understandably, the Plasmas felt a strong bit of animosity towards him. The fact that a cowardly man like that had returned to a den of stewing hostility was probably a bit of a development.

"That so?" Rishou snorted. It wasn't that Zinzolin was at all untrustworthy, but that just sounded ridiculous to him. Absolutely ridiculous.

Zinzolin shuffled his feet, gloved hands clasping. "Yes. Weavile is keeping him occupied at the moment, but the thing is, he... he says that he knows where Lord Ghetsis is."


	5. E4 level info

"Please don't phone again," Giovanni said into the receiver of his desk phone before putting it down with satisfying whack. He was in the middle of some very intense work, and it was getting on his nerves each time the phone rang. He didn't even have a clue who it was disturbing him, as these older models of phones didn't have caller ID.

His dark eyes flicked over the sheet of information in his one hand, and with the other, he jotted something down on a paper covered in figures. A few dots were starting to connect, and it was very intriguing.

After his defeat, he had devoted his life to studying Pokemon further, just as he had told that person he would, and his research was turning up very interesting things indeed. He had noted points in history where Pokemon had dramatically interacted with humans- it was usually the Legendaries initiating these clashes, of course, but regardless, it was strange how... connected these instances all seemed. There were certain Pokemon that seemed to pop up repeatedly in the middle of action, regardless of how many centuries spanned between the occurrences. He had seen repeated records of a Gardevoir, Zoroark, Deino, and others. What significance these motifs had was lost on him- his studies had not run that deeply yet, but it was so fascinating.

He would have to look in to it later, because that damned phone rang again.

"What."

He answered it with a flat voice, conveying just how annoyed he was with this disturbance... it evaporated in his surprise at hearing one of his former executives on the line.

"It took you long enough to actually pick up," he recognized as a type of whining, although the man's voice was too low and smooth to convey much emotion. "Hey boss, what's up?"

Giovanni looked at the handset with slight distaste before putting it back up to his mouth. "I'm not your boss anymore, Petrel," he snapped, annoyance tinging his voice obviously. "I hope you wouldn't have called so persistently just for frivolities, so let's skip the catching up. Tell me what you called for."

On the other side of the line, the purple-haired (former)executive reclined in his chair, putting his feet up not the desk in front of him. He absently chewed on the filter of his cigarette, then stopped, seeming a bit surprised by the action. "Right, right, you're just a real goody two-shoes Gym Leader now, aren't you. Heh, well, _boss_, I've heard mutterings of the other guys, you know the ones, right? I mean, I thought I should probably tell you, since you were interested in them before, and I knew you wouldn't have access to info like that anymore."

There was a long silence, and Petrel shook his phone impatiently as if that would help hurry Gio up.

"...I see," Giovanni finally said, a certain kind of tightness in his voice, a quiet resignation. "What did you hear?"

"It's only stuff the government would know, unfortunately," Petrel sighed, flicking the carcinogenic cig to dislodge a curl of ashes from the tip and slipping his heels off the desk. He was a master at disguises, and no one who had any say in the Johto League had no idea who that one guy from Team Rocket was. Petrel himself found it funny that the only time he was himself in front of the government was right under its nose- he'd gotten hired, see, specifically for the sake of gaining information. He liked information. "But it's kind of interesting anyways. So get this, the guy from Unova, he goes to visit Sinnoh, and gets arrested, right?"

Petrel spun his chair leisurely with one foot, dark lavender eyes scanning over the slightly crumpled pages he held. "All well and fine, yeah, but then this is weird, it seems like the InP decided to take him from local custody and then- okay, I lied, this is the strange part- all the records just stop there."

He slapped the papers down on his desk, just as annoyed by this cliffhanger as anyone would be, and continued spinning therapeutically.

Another pause, but shorter than the first. "And?"

"And what?" Petrel chuckled, blowing a thin stream of smoke from his lips. "Like I said, it stops there, I can't say anything more specific about it."

"You're the one who works for the League." Oh... it occurred to Giovanni then that he was still technically a Gym Leader, just suspended for a few years. "With the government sector. What could it _mean_ that there's no more to it?"

That made Petrel put his foot down and stop for a moment to think. "All I can imagine is that it's something really secret, like E4 level information. I mean, I could try to get in and nab a few files from that section, but there's some serious security on that stuff, and no promise that I'd get anything relevant. I think the best thing would be calling one of your other old pets, maybe digging up a favor?"

Honestly, the only of the other executives who truly remained loyal to Giovanni -in fact, kept contact with him- was Archer. Arianna had gone on with her life, and Proton... Proton was scary. All of those who remained were kind of glad he'd vanished, to be honest.

Giovanni frowned down at the papers he'd been considering before the phone call. The Cyrillic script, the early version from the year 1020, hurt his head in conjuncture with the random call from someone he only had used to know.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I was bored," Petrel said, gesticulating despite the fact that he was using a phone. He had a talent for strange movements and even weirder poses. "And besides, you were a fun boss. I never could manage your voice, but it was entertaining to try, so I owe you for that. Besides, you know me, I'm a nice guy."

True, anyone with sense would choose Petrel if they had to make friends with one of the execs.

"Mm," Giovanni said articulately, not committing to any answer. Archer had joked about getting the gang back together more than once, he probably wouldn't deny a request from an old teammate (it was obvious Petrel was asking about further investigation to sate his own curiosity as well) especially when it might benefit Giovanni as well.

Besides, if the InP was having any sort of contact with _that_ sociopath, it would be a good thing for him to know before anything major happened. The Team leaders always had held a sort of antipathy towards each other, despite the fact that they were all working towards parallel goals, sort of. At least, they were all "the bad guys."

"Alright. I'll speak to Archer. Thank you, Petrel."

The call ended, and Petrel looked at his phone with a faint "tch." He didn't have any contempt for Giovanni at all. Unfortunately, he realized, he'd accidentally picked up his work phone instead of his personal one. That could come to be a problem, since calls on the work phones were recorded...

Not a bother for him, he didn't really like this job anyways.

He went back to spinning immaturely.


	6. Coffee rocket

Lysandre closed his eyes, thumbs massaging his temples with great pressure, as if he were trying to squeeze his brain out. He was beginning to wonder if he had made a bad decision in forcing Cyrus to work with him. The man insisted on blasting Japanese metal music at full volume whenever he had to do something, he refused to use headphones, and Lysandre hadn't gotten anything done in the past week. But he didn't trust any of his workers enough to keep Cyrus in line, so he couldn't go to a different room to work or anything. He was seriously considering murdering the Kantonese man, damn his plans. He couldn't deal with this for much longer.

Cyrus was innocently leaned over his papers. He'd given in to Lysandre easily enough after a few threats... in all probability, he was plotting how to get away, but for now he was working pretty diligently. That was the good thing here, he made up for what work Lysandre was missing, and added his own genius into it like the Kalosian had been planning on having him do.

Standing, Lysandre went over to look over the blue-haired man's shoulder. Cyrus kind of instinctively hunched his shoulders, allowing a clearer view. Lysandre was struck by how brilliant the guy was, even if his tastes in music were questionable. Some of this stuff he came up with was better than he'd dared to hope. He wouldn't have possibly thought on his own to- hmm. Interesting. It was quite obvious how Cyrus had succeed in his plans, even if they had backfired. That hadn't been the Galactic leader's fault.

Lysandre had ample reason to admire the plans of this strange man before him now. Unless he misunderstood, Cyrus had wanted to take emotions away. While Lysandre had to think that emotions were perfectly alright, beautiful, in fact, it sometimes burrowed into his mind that they were, in fact, the root of sin. Murder and violence was the offspring of hate, robbery and sexual assault a result of greed and lust. Every crime could be traced back to an emotion, which wiped out inhibitions, turning even the most perfect people into withering beings built on decadence. He didn't agree with Cyrus, for certain, but he did have to think that he had a point.

The only thing that had saved them was the fact that Giratina and Dialga weren't mindless beasts like so many Pokemon were assumed to be. And that the kid the League had sent to challenge Cyrus at Spear Pillar(Lysandre still didn't understand why they always let the fate of the region rest on one little child every time a villainous team cropped up) had _almost _won. He'd managed to damage the Red Chain, at least, so Giratina had just laughed and... exploded the world. The book Lysandre had read about it had gotten a little foggy then, all he really knew was that something had blasted over the entire region of Sinnoh and killed half a billion people. No one seemed to know the exact details of that, and he was a bit too scared of what the answer could be to actually ask Cyrus.

Lysandre felt silly for being scared of it, but it... it was the scale of destruction he'd bring upon Lumoise city alone when his plan finally resolved. It was just something that he didn't like to think about much. Having to kill a few people wasn't so bad, but to think of all those strangers and their likely normal lives, suddenly ending... by his design, no less...

He was thinking about it again, and had to forcibly move his mind on to other subjects. The end results would surely justify the means. He was blameless. He was only working for that beautiful world he'd lost.

And to be sure, Lysandre could imagine how much of a relief dying could be.

He'd aged well, and people couldn't tell, but he was three thousand four hundred something years old, he'd lost track a while ago. Xerneas had thrown back his magnificent head and bellowed with laughter as Lysandre had struggled to breathe in his shock. Suddenly having all the blood in one's body renewed and filled with what he could only call magic was a... strange experience, and it had burned like fire under his skin. He'd wished for his entire life since then that he'd never seen that creature, that he could have just _died _and escaped from a world slowly spiraling into sin.

Hmm. It was past. He shouldn't be dwelling on it. Cyrus was giving him a somewhat strange look, as if wondering if he was going to say anything or if he just planned on standing over his shoulder forever.

"Right. That's excellent," Lysandre said suddenly, although it had mostly slipped his mind what it was that he'd been reading. Cyrus's handwriting was too much of a bother anyways, he'd only caught a few words of it, enough to clue him in that it was absolutely ingenious. He'd have to have someone else read it to him later. At least it wasn't like that one scientist he'd worked with a few years ago, he'd had writing the size of a flea. Lysandre could at least decipher some of what Cyrus wrote, if he concentrated.

Cyrus seemed to sense that he wasn't paying attention, as he got up and walked off. It was so abrupt that Lysandre stood there for a moment before turning to catch up with him. He didn't really want to let Cyrus wander unaccompanied anywhere. He didn't trust the Kantonese man to not dismantle his mega-gear and build something else out of it, or to not escape, which would be equally as tragic.

"Are you concerned?" Cyrus asked him without slowing down or glancing back. "I intended on getting coffee." He assumed that was enough of a non-threatening activity that he'd be allowed to do it himself... perhaps stating where he was going first might have helped.

"You could make a rocket out of the coffee machine, if the stories about you are true," Lysandre countered. It sounded like Cyrus was accusing him of being paranoid, which he truly didn't appreciate. He was not paranoid, he just knew well enough to watch his back. Anything could go wrong at any second. He liked to have precautions in place, and this was a fairly simple one to take.

"They are," Cyrus responded without skipping a beat. He'd probably been accused of things like that a million times. Probably an old joke to him.

He was mechanically gifted, it was true. Cyrus would have been puzzled by why a lot of people were awed when he did things such as turning old things into useful tools. It was easy for him, perfectly natural, and trying to explain to him that not everyone had such talents was a waste of time.

Uniformity would have been so nice. It was part of what he'd been going for in his "creation of a new universe" plan. He hadn't made all the members of Team Galactic dress the same for no reason. A lot of people would scoff and say that the world would simply be boring if everyone was the same, but he disagreed. Appearance alone generated a lot emotions. Envy, disappointment, self-loathing, pride, inferiority, and even just skimming on the feelings generated by the clashings of different personalities would take longer than he felt like thinking about it now that that universe was an impossibility.

Lysandre simply shook his head, not voicing any opinion he might have had on that statement. Cyrus didn't even seem to be bragging, but it was extremely... impossible to tell with him. One had to be looking straight into his eyes to tell if his faint emotions matched what he was saying.

"I'm not going to do that, of course," Cyrus added mildly as he poured coffee into a mug. Team Flare was too fancy to use Styrofoam cups like the rest of the world. As he added creamer and sugar, he explained, "That would deprive us of coffee."

It seemed to be a concern of his.

After staring at him for a moment, trying to discern if he was serious or not, Lysandre shrugged to himself. It didn't matter, as long as he didn't do it.

Cyrus looked right back at him over the rim of his mug, and there was a long moment of silence.

"I assume there is more that you wish me to do," Cyrus mentioned then, raising one almost nonexistent eyebrow at him.

"Yes. No. I would certainly appreciate if you would continue working, but I will have no choice but to strangle you if you insist on playing that music of yours any longer." Lysandre couldn't stand _that_ any longer. Some of the songs were starting to get stuck in his head.

"You don't like my language," Cyrus observed. It became icy again as Lysandre tried to figure out a reply.

That was when two of his admins came down the hall, breathing hard from their difficult attempts at finding him, and struggling with the man they were restraining. Even though they brought nothing but trouble, Lysandre had to be glad that they'd showed up. It had been getting awkward.

The man they were holding was tall, writhing like a snake in his frantic bid to escape, bruised and cut in multiple places. His glasses were askew and broken, and he'd obviously gone through some abuse on the way here, since many of the scrapes looked recent.

Lysandre recognized him at once. They'd never met before, and Lysandre was fairly certain that he was dead, or at least he had been, but he was an unmistakable figure that had popped up countless times in his research. Red hair and eyes, glasses, a collage of pink and red clothing, and a fiery attitude. Obviously...

"Maxie," Lysandre said, not showing any surprise he may have had about the Magma leader's presence. "It's a pleasure to host you here in Kalos." He smiled. Cyrus was being eerily quiet.

Maxie was growling like something feral. Lysandre had to think that this was the most unclean thing to ever enter the halls of the Team Flare headquarters. He couldn't help but curl his lip slightly.

"Please, control yourself. I am aware that Hoenn is a land of savages, but surely you can straighten up."

Maxie obviously wasn't Hoennian by birth, that much was clear just by looking at him. Lysandre wondered vaguely if he still had whatever manners may have been taught in his home region. He had to doubt that.

Apparently just to spite him, Maxie spat on the floor disgustingly. His eyes were burning brilliantly, such a lovely crimson color. Whatever the admins had done to detain him had failed to diminish his spirit in the slightest. The only thing that made him pause in his struggles was catching sight of Cyrus standing back from the commotion. A look of great disgust flashed over his face for a brief moment, before he slid his gaze back to Lysandre.

The noise that left this mouth dripped with contempt. "What could a brat such as yourself possibly want from a foreign stranger?" he asked venomously. "And why is that man alive?" He directed a terse nod at Cyrus, narrowing his eyes.

Lysandre spread his arms openly, in welcome. "I could ask the same about you. I can't imagine any scientist who wouldn't jump at the chance to study a dead man returned from the grave."

In fact, this had not been part of his plan at all, but adapting seemed like the best thing to do right now. This could be extremely useful.

Maxie's expression darkened for the slightest moment, but he recovered into apathy quickly, even ceasing to struggle. Perhaps he intended to say something then, but he wasn't given the chance before one of the admins panicked and grabbed a handful of red hair to slam the Magma's leader's head roughly into the wall. It happened so quickly that Lysandre didn't have time to do anything but open his mouth before Maxie was out.

"Why did you do that?" Lysandre said, dumbfounded.

The admin began to tremble, still holding up Maxie's now limp body by his hair. "I-I...uh..." He was one of the articulate ones, apparently.

Cyrus allowed himself to smile once as the Kalosian noble stomped over to rage at the admins and ask where the hell they'd even found Maxie.


	7. Intrinsic bonds

Ghetsis was turning out to be a very difficult prisoner to place. Stupidly, he'd been put in at first with a cellmate, but he'd had to be moved after almost being raped, all the way into an isolation cell. It was probably for the best, seeing as most of the other inmates knew his name and image with a negative connotation. He hadn't made it any better, spitting at them in Russian and leaving them all to think he'd insulted them. The International Police couldn't afford to have this man killed or disabled. Even if he wasn't complying with their demands, Ghetsis was highly valuable. Someone would be skinned if he were lost.

The duty of talking to him continued to fall on Looker, despite his protests. The detective was continually creeped out by Ghetsis. The man was absolutely passive, and didn't seem to be showing any of the mental deterioration displayed by other solitary prisoners. And the _most_ odd thing was that he was still in his cell every time Looker went to meet him. Either the InP had unwittingly built the prison out of something that stopped the Shadow Triad from retrieving their leader, or Ghetsis had an agenda here. Looker couldn't help but bet on the second, and the possibilities scared him.

The Unovan man was sitting on the uncomfortable, thin mat that served as his bed, hands folded, eyes closed, fingers pressed to his lips. They'd had to take his eyepiece, as it was sharp and could have served as a weapon, and it revealed the perfectly star-shaped scar around the man's eye. It did not help to calm Looker at all. He had to wonder if that was _really_ the atonement inflicted for the "time catastrophe" Ghetsis had supposedly been involved in. Looker couldn't imagine a random explosion creating such a flawless shape. It was, however, just one of the many things he _reeeally_ didn't want to ask about.

Ghetsis looked up when the detective came into the room, a smile suddenly appearing on his face. It was impossible to imagine that he _enjoyed_ being questioned and stared at through awkward bouts of silence. Looker was nervous about making any theories on why, then, he smiled every time. It could only be for the same reason he was still here. Did Ghetsis_ want_ something from him? If so, it would be pretty damn nice if he could actually cooperate and answer a few questions for once.

No, Ghetsis wasn't planning on being agreeable today either.

Looker could basically tell he was going to be stubborn again and keep dodging his questions. It was the look on his face. The detective had asked everything he could think of to at least prompt some response over the last sessions, ranging from Ghetsis's personal life and family, to his plans, to his opinions on politics or the weather. Somehow, the green-haired man had somehow brought the conversation back to some Pokemon or another he'd spotted during his brief trip to Sinnoh. How he managed that from even the most random query, it... it was something that man would never know. Only God could comprehend that.

"You're not going to tell me anything, again, are you not?" Looker sighed, dragging in the folding chair he'd been provided with (Ghetsis was not allowed to have anything that didn't attach to the walls firmly in case he tried suicide) and snapping it open so he could sit down. These sessions were typically uncomfortably long.

Ghetsis seemed to take a moment to think about that, smiling faintly at the ceiling. "Hmm. No. Sorry, you're still not getting any answers out of me." He focused on Looker again, causing the detective to shiver. He was never going to get used to the disconcerting feeling of being looked at by two different eyes, one person. Brilliant red contrasted with the hazy greenness that had been concealed prior to his eyepatch being taken. It just didn't look _normal_. Of course it was simply a mutation, and it occurred naturally in people sometimes, but Looker just didn't like it.

"I guessed so," the detective sighed, closing his eyes and raising his hands. "Harmonia, why are you here? You have nothing to gain, being here, and nothing to lose from trying to escape."

Ghetsis's little smirk turned into a more natural smile. "No, Detective, I certainly do have a purpose here. However, it's one that I'll need your assistance to be recognized fully."

He stood from where he'd been seated to walk up to Looker, gaze cast down shyly. An act, of course. Acting was something Ghetsis had become quite good at, starting early on in life. "Detective- or... Looker, I'd rather call you, will you help me? I know, it's not something I have much leverage behind in my current position, but I must ask."

He placed a hand on his delicate chest, wearing a soft expression. "You see, there's something extremely important-"

Before he could reveal this extremely important thing he had to tell Looker about, there was a particularly loud disturbance in the hallway. The detective only hesitated a moment before abandoning Harmonia in his cell, only pausing to half-lock the door, but it took too long. This sounded like a pretty big deal. Ghetsis... probably couldn't really do much damage if he got out, he was kind of weak.

The cause of the disturbance was a restless detainee, restless in this context meaning that he was struggling with the officers trying to restrain him. Looker had to admit, it looked like something the officers had started. The prisoner looked pretty distressed about it.

The man was someone Looker recognized, having tracked him a few years back for suspected mafia activity in Johto. Giovanni, the illustrious, if criminal, mastermind behind Team Rocket. It was odd to see him here. The popularly accepted word about him was that he'd dropped criminal activity to live a reclusive life. The International Police did not typically arrest or detain people who hadn't done something illegal.

"Detective Looker! Sir!" one of the officers puffed, catching sight of him. "We were just taking this man to his holding cell, don't worry. It's under control."

It did appear to be under control. Giovanni, based on his expression, was too busy brooding over someone's impending murder to fight, even though he would physically be well capable of it. What had been the sound, then? A different prisoner fussing, maybe, Looker wrote it off, probably the Hoennian man who had been brought in earlier. That guy _really_ did not like being here.

"Do you know what cell to be putting him in?" Looker asked with that perfect ESL grammar. He strode over to assist the officers, since they were obviously incompetent.

* * *

Ghetsis hadn't made an attempt to escape his cell. One of the things that people were scared of him because of, besides his admittedly intimidating appearance, was how intelligent he was. He was smart enough to know that there was no point. If it ever came to the time where he absolutely had to be out of this prison or risk death, he'd simply call the Shadow Triad. Going out of the open cell door would only get him in trouble, and he needed all the trust he could get for this to work.

He looked up from the floor as footsteps approached his cell(the point of isolation cells was that they were isolated -in this case, the solitary confinement thing was ruined by his meetings with Looker, but that was irrelevant- and he doubted the steps were for anyone else).

The only discrepancy between his expectations for Looker's return and what really happened was that it wasn't Looker who appeared before him.

Cold grey eyes looked aloofly at him from a perpetually bored expression. That gaze looked up and down Ghetsis's body slowly, with disturbing familiarity, and then a wide smile stretched out unnaturally across that hated face. He was dressed in a police uniform, but there was no way not to recognize him if you knew anything, despite a haircut that had altered his appearance greatly.

The young man stepped right into the doorway, gripping the wooden frame tightly, with almost splintering force.

"Hello, Father."


End file.
